The greatest beards in world sports – in pictures

The Red Sox outfielder Jonny Gomes may be being inexpolicably coy in this picture, but it's pretty much certain – obviously – that the bottom half of his Red Sox t-shirt reads '… a decent razor.' Oh yes. Not that that's to imply some sort of disapproval of the biblically bushy monster that is peeping, irrepressibly, from behind his bat. Oh no. Photograph: Greg M Cooper/USA Today/Sports

The slugger Mike Napoli isn't quite so shy, of course. Here, he allows some appropriately grateful and adoring Sox fans to express their intense appreciation, bordering-on-if-not-tipping-into-outright-relgious-some-might-say-cult-follower-esque-adoration, of his magnificent chin privet. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters

Of course, the Red Sox don't hold a monopoly on baseball beards – here's Brian Wilson of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not that this behemoth is a playoff beard, per se. He really means it. That earns respect, as does Wilson's '00' number, which of course puts one in mind of James Bond, who though not hirsute himself was once played by the generally bearded Sean Connery. That could be a contorted link to saying Wilson's beard is worthy of an appearance in a remake of the non-Bond classic Zardoz – only in that Sir Sean just had a moustache and spent the entire film in some sort of designer red nappy. So no. Photograph: Harry How/Getty Images

…and if the Red Sox do not have a monopoly on baseball playoff beards, nor does baseball have a monopoly on the genre. Here, in evidence, is Scott Niedermayer of the Anaheim Ducks, pictured after winning the Stanley Cup in 2007. The extensive professorial grey in Niedermayer's beard is, of course, both a rarity in professional sports and a joy to behold. I, and perhaps no one else in the continental United States, am reminded of the Wimbledon and Sheffield United striker Alan Cork. If you don't know who he is, you haven't lived. Photograph: Harry How/Getty Images

One more magnificent NHL playoff beard, as sported by Scott Hartnell of the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010, to the effect of looking like the kind of bit-part actor who did nightclub security inbetween playing 'Second Tough in Bar' or 'Snarling Biker' in 70s and 80s Hollywood 'knockabout' comedies. You know, the kind of chap who got punched into a shelf of glasses by either Clint or the orangutan. Obviously. Photograph: Al Bello/Getty Images

This is Brett Keisel, a defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers who makes the usually frustrating identifying process of having to look for pictures of NFL players sans helmet an unexpected pleasure. Consider two things: i) Why in the name of all that's holy would anyone want to imprison this cascading, oddly backwoodsesque yet pleasingly groomed beauty behind visor, mask or grille? And: ii) Given that he has nonetheless to do so, how the hell does he cram it all in? I'm picturing, in a pleasing sort of reverie, some sort of monstrous snood. Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

Staying in the NFL, here Matt Light, formerly an offensive tackle with the New England Patriots, demonstrates one well-known fact and one little-known one. The well-known fact is about the curse of being any sort of blond, Anglo-Saxonish chap who decides to dedicate himself to the growing of any kind of beard: the ginger tinge. The little-known fact is that Light, a suitably beefy type whose beard fluctuated superbly in length and density throughout his career, turns out to look a bit like Robert Redford after the application of a bicycle pump. Photograph: Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images

James Harden of the Houston Rockets owns – if one can ever truly own such a splendid, probably independently sentient entity, practically coniferous in its folical plenitude as it is – possibly the finest beard in the NBA. Here, he generously takes time out during a pre-season engagement in Taipei, the better to instruct local youth on how they too, with sufficient application, concentration and devil-may-care disregard for the financial wellbeing of their local barber, can one day grow a truly herculean lady pleaser. And play some basketball too, if they fancy. Photograph: Mandy Cheng/AFP/Getty Images

The Los Angeles Lakers forward Pau Gasol cannot, of course, compete with James Harden. He's not even close. But the evident media interest in the state of his chin shown here suggests that this season he should at last provide a definitive answer to one of the perennial questions of basketball: Does Pau Gasol want to be bearded, or doesn't he? Only he knows the answer. Which is 'yes'. He does. Photograph: Alex Gallardo/AP

Moving away from the world of American professional sports, as we probably must… If by a chap's face-fungus shall thee know him, then the Biarritz second-row forward Erik Lund is a splendidly unlikely Norwegian rugby hero, towering of stature and intimidating of beard. They don't play rugby much in Norway – but tell that to the appropriately cringeing Grenoble players seen here. Photograph: Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images

Staying with rugby (because I'm doubly biased, having both a slightly unreasonable love for the sport and, inevitably, a beard), here's Canada's Adam Kleeberger in action at the 2011 World Cup where, alas, such slightly more mighty rugby powers as New Zealand and France turned out not to be that frightened by the appearance of the wild man of Borneo on the Canucks' flank. Double alas, Kleeberger then scored a contract in England and… shaved off the beard. Tut. Photograph: Lynne Cameron/PA

One of these brutes is a waxwork. The other is Sébastien Chabal, who found fame at the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France, generally by appearing to ingest hapless Namibians in a frightening whirlwind of hair, bristles, teeth and severed limbs. The great All Black No8 Zinzan Brooke once asked me: 'What the fuck do they put in that guy's cornflakes?' To which the only answer had to be: 'Super-strength lawn fertiliser, probably.' The guy's practically an ent. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar

To Australia, where they also play rugby but they also play Australian Rules Football. Here's Chris Masten of the West Coast Eagles. Note the ubiquitous and most unfortunate wearing of what I can only call a vest, singlet or tank top, which when paired with such luxurious facial growth can result in alarmingly hairy vistas when a player goes up for a high ball, arms unhygienically outstretched. But there you are, I suppose. Photograph: Joe Castro/AAP

To cricket, and to a genuinely religious beard – the prodigious South Africa batsman Hashim Amla is a devout Muslim, and thus wears his facial hear the traditional way: prodigiously. One purely stylistic quibble, if I may (which I possibly may not, in which case pre-emptive apologies)… the thinness of the moustache. It's not quite the full baseball pitcher chinstrap – there's something there – but nor is it the Full Monty, rippling across the philtrum like a fecund midwestern cornfield at dusk. Disappointingly, I find that disappointing. Photograph: Harry Engels/Getty Images

Straying into the world of round-ball football, here's the late and lamented Brazil midfielder Socrates in his 1980s pomp. Marks lost for the relative restraint shown on cheeks and chin are restored by the politically charged headband and the relative scarcity of the true soccer beard. Beckham-esque fashion statements deservedly aside, why does the only truly global game display such distrust of the truly hairy chin and top lip? That's what I want to know. Photograph: Bongarts/Bongarts/Getty Images

The exception that proves the rule? Or the exceptional beard that proves Everton's American goalkeeper, Tim Howard, rules the world of bearded soccer goalkeepers unchallenged? Either way, this is a splendid effort of such magnificently dark lustre that unsuspecting attackers might not even see it coming as Howard charges from his goal towards them. Whether Howard's slab of untrammeled manliness could actually stop a shot on its own is, possibly, up for further debate. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

And finally… no. Or maybe yes. But probably, ultimately, no. This is not a proper beard. Photograph: Patsy Lynch/Rex Features